Misunderestimation
As the last bit of daylight was creeping out of the living room last Saturday, I casually set about to begin removing the wallpaper from the living and dining rooms – the only areas from the original house that have remained largely unaltered from their original circa 1914 incarnation. I'd spent the earlier part of the day in the company of a few friends who had heroically volunteered to help me paint the walls on the main level. With what by most standards would certainly be considered a full day of productive work already behind me, it would seem odd to some that I begin such an effort as the sun was fading. However, in my current heightened state of hubris-filled hyper-home-improvement, I no longer consider what would be logical or prudent. In the days I have remaining to work on the house between now and the looming deadline lurking on the horizon, there is no room for planning or thought or strategy. There is no room for food or safety or going to the bathroom in a receptacle that was designed for that purpose. There is only room for work. So, I work. I work until I start to stumble over my own feet. And then I drive home in a weary daze and sleep, only to repeat the same ritual again. If not tomorrow – soon. In this altered state of perception, it seems altogether fitting to begin a monumental undertaking as lightweight weekend warriors have long since tugged off work boots and have migrated toward the cozier confines of the couch or dinner table.
I approached the task of wallpaper removal with the casual optimism that is the hallmark of the simultaneously arrogant and ignorant. However, some of the unwarranted optimism I was exuding can be attributed to the eager Home Depot sales associate who bristled with confidence as he loaded my cart with a 1 gallon container of blue gelatinous goo containing high-tech wallpaper adhesive-gobbling enzymes. I envisioned balding, bespectacled scientists in white lab coats with beakers and Bunsen burners toiling away in some secret NASA laboratory to concoct this magical solution. I had scarcely uttered the words "wallpaper removal" and the eager Home Depot sales associate was already marching off in the direction of the blue goo. In retrospect, my instincts should have warned me that when someone describes work as being this easy, it almost always is certainly not. I now see that the eager Home Depot sales associate was certainly being paid off by the makers of the goo, but his pitch was ever so convincing. "Spray this on the wall, let it sit for 15 minutes and the wallpaper will be falling off the wall." Maybe his pitch wasn't that convincing, but it certainly sounded so given how much I wanted to believe it. I paid for the goo and checked off the imaginary checkbox in my mind. Problem solved. Thank you, NASA. Having this problem already solved in my mind was comforting because prior to the purchase of the blue goo, I had felt a pang of worry each time I had walked through this part of the house and caught a glimpse of the thick woven fibers of the wheat-colored fabric wallpaper clinging neatly to the walls. This paper was original to the house and wasn't even lifting at the corner (even after the monsoon season we experienced last June just after I finished tearing off the roof). Why is it that allowing rainwater to trickle down through your house will certainly wreak havoc on your century-old beloved quartersawn oak millwork but have no effect on the furry wallpaper which very likely belonged to an era in which it was commonly believed to have "looked good" but which era is certainly not now? However, I had to believe that modern science had an answer to the stubborn wheat-colored wallpaper. I mean in the time since this wallpaper had been applied, we'd fought 2 world wars, put a man on the moon and invented Twitter. Surely modern science had an answer to the conundrum of ridding oneself of ancient wall covering. And it did! In the form of blue gelatinous goo! I had procured a cheap plastic spray bottle from K-Mart for the express purpose of applying the blue goo. On my way to the checkout, I suddenly realized that the lone purchase of a single plastic spray bottle seemed highly suspicious. Anyone who needs to run over to K-Mart real quick just to pick up a plastic spray bottle can't be up to anything good. In a last ditch effort to ward off the suspicions of the checkout clerk, I paired my plastic spray bottle with a hastily grabbed bag of Sour Patch Kids. As they were rolling along the belt toward the checker, I realized I probably looked more suspicious than before. With a tightly contracted jaw muscle from all the Sour Patch Kids I had been eating, I filled my cheap plastic spray bottle with blue goo and started spraying. The goo was too thick for the nozzle of the spray bottle. So I dumped a third back into the jug and topped off the spray bottle with water. After shaking vigorously and priming the sprayer, the magical little enzymes were soon attacking the certain-to-be-now-banned-by-the-government adhesive that has held this paper to the wall almost 3 times longer than I have been on this earth. When tearing apart an old house you encounter a cornucopia of smells, sights and textures that you will likely never encounter elsewhere in life. You can't help but think that you've just encountered substances that, in part, gave rise to enterprises like the EPA or OSHA. Instead of shrinking in horror and scrambling for my carbon-filtered respirator, I tend to breathe deep reveling in the fact that I'm so intimately connected with a structure that defies government oversight. Maybe there's hope I can make it in life as a Libertarian after all (that is, of course, if I live long enough to see how this all plays out given the stuff I've breathed in from our house). I sprayed and waited the requisite 15 minutes. Upon my return, I was disheartened to find that no wallpaper had fallen off the wall. In fact, the wallpaper seemed to be clinging to the wall more fervently than before in an act of defiance. I imagined my army of tiny wounded enzymes retreating en masse. Modern science or no, wallpaper that has managed to stay on a wall for a hundred years isn't going down without a fight. NASA-engineered enzyme army be damned! At this point in the project, the typical thinking of the equally arrogant and ignorant is to do more of whatever is not working. Perhaps I had neglected to apply a sufficient amount of goo for it to work properly. I discarded the cheap plastic spray bottle and reached for my paint roller. I poured the goo into my paint pan and began saturating the roller. The fabric of the wallpaper squished as I drenched it in a film of frothy blue goo. Again I waited, and again I was disappointed to see that no wallpaper was falling to the ground in a final act of surrender. The wallpaper was now wet and gooey, but no more inclined to move than when I first started. I pricked and pulled. Tiny little tatters would tear off, but nothing that provided any kind of satisfaction. I went back to the spray bottle – this time with water only (eager Home Depot sales associate, watch your back because I'm coming for you and I've got a half-full gallon jug of blue goo!). I sprayed and whittled away with my 1" putty knife. I had a wider one, but it proved worthless. Spray, scrape, spray, scrape, moan, scrape, swear, spray. Imagine the worst experience you've ever had trying to remove the most tenacious price sticker from something you bought at the store (in the days when everything had a price tag). Now imagine if that price tag was 10 feet tall and it had 100 years to chemically fuse itself to the package. You get the idea. Slowly but surely, I began to develop a system. Almost 4 hours later I had managed to clear a ~6' section of the wall. Each little bit that came off did so only because I left it with no other option. I was going to drown it with my spray bottle or I was going to slash it to bits with my putty knife, but I was not going to allow it to remain on the wall. Clean smooth plaster breathing free and clear for the first time since before Woodrow Wilson sat in the oval office. Now I've just got a hundred linear feet or so of wall left. Anyone have a small putty knife and some time to kill?
